Monster Cross 50 2013

This is one of my favorite races to date.  It may not have any single track, but it is fast.  With nearly 400 racers and only 24 of us being in the single speed mountain bike category I knew this would not be easy.  I lined up somewhere close to the front to hopefully jump on with a fast group of geared riders I could jump on with for the flats and downhills.  The first mile was a neutral roll out, but still a good place to weave through the traffic.  I stuck to my plan and once we were let loose I jumped in a group of riders and we were off making up ground on a group ahead of us.  We were within 100 yards of them when a rider went down going across a bridge, so we had to slow down to go around him.  Just when we were making good time again we were held up at a road crossing for the ambulance to pass to pick up the injured rider.  Once we started rolling again I jumped out front of the group and pulled away until we started downhill or long flats and they would pull back up to me.  This went on for the majority of the race.  I would catch up to small groups of 2-4 riders at a time when hitting the inclines and leaving them behind.  Roughly 38 miles into the race me and 2 other racers came to an intersection and followed the sign straight instead of left.  We came to another intersection about .4-.5 miles down the fire road, so I started asking riders coming up from our left what mileage they were at and they were only 35 miles into the race.  We turned around and started pedaling as hard as we could go.  I kept this crazy pace for the next 7-8 miles until the leg cramps started creeping up.  I backed off the crazy spinning I was doing and just started dumping everything I had left in my last bottle and a GU.  I was hoping to catch another single speeder, but it never happened.  I ended up finishing 9th in the single speed mtn bike category in a time of 3:22:34.